Any ideas on this one? As I was tootling on the motorway today a low flying pheasant flew in front of me. Any lower and my windscreen would have contacted with its uppermost tail feather or possibly worse. If I had hit it at 70 mph (or thereabouts) do you think it would have:
a) flown by grazed and slightly shaken but nothing injured but its pride
b) bounced over the top ending up as pheasant soup on the roadway behind me
or
c) smashed through my windscreen, flapping as it did so causing me to lose control at the point of no return.. (or something like that)
There are no prizes this time, its just for fun,but I'm interested what people think so I know whether to avoid this particular stretch of motorway in the future..
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Don't worry
I hit one it bounced off the windscreen and did no damage apart from a bloody mess ! birds are very light - they have to be in order to be able to fly, so they wouldn't be able to inflict major damage, although I have heard of them denting bodywork and so forth.
I once hit a dog in the 3rd lane of the M1 - didn't do the dog much good, last thing I saw it was doing 70+ MPH on its side ! - have no idea how it managed to find itself in the 3rd lane of the M1.
Luckily I was driving a Xantia and it didn't suffer any damage apart from a cracked number plate.
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Hit one last week while driving a Mk 4 Golf at about 60. It smacked into the screen about 6" from the top but no damage to car despite a helluva thump. The most dangerous bit was when I knew it was about to hit the screen, I closed my eyes and ducked. How do you stop yourself? I wince when I think how far I travelled, braking yes, but blind.
Funny thing was, I saw it on the verge. I swear it looked at the car and then it took off across my path. Must have (had?) a lemming gene.
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Strewth mate, thank yer lucky stars she wasn't a friggin' 'roo. Yer'd have enough soup to open a bleedin' kitchen.
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This is an extract from a mail I sent to a contact a while ago, it is relevant to this thread.
?Some years ago the day before I was due to get my very first company car I was driving my 205GTI southbound on the A38. Speed was about 65 in lane 2, I had just overtaken another vehicle and was planning a return to lane 1 to make room for the National Express coach gradually catching me up about 100m behind.
I presume the coach driver got a good view of the overall scenario as a swan flew at low level across the northbound carriageway and had not really got enough speed or altitude when it arrived at the crash barrier. The first I saw of the swan was as it pulled up into a stall attitude to gain a few inches, just enough to pop it over the barrier and into the screen in front of me.
Fortunately the screen pillar took some of the force, but the windscreen bowed in trapping my hands between it and the wheel. The inside of the car filled with a shower of fine glass particles, but fortunately the swan, by now extremely dead, stayed outside.
The stretch of road is straight so I kept as constant a speed and direction as I could, looked in the mirror to see a mixture of feathers and tyre smoke from coach and the other car. Anyway I managed to free my hands enough to steer a little, and by leaning right over onto the passenger side could see enough to slow down and get the car off the road and into a bus stop lay by.
So there I was, after a huge moment, blood dripping everywhere from hands and a few minor face cuts, and did anyone stop to help? That?s when I lost some faith in human nature.?
Thinking about this some more I realise that, as Darcy said, there is an automatic reaction to duck and I also guess this was a rather close call. Hate to think what would have happened if the screen had failed completely and I had ended up with one seriously upset swan sitting on my knee.
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>automatic reaction to duck...
??
David
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I thought you said it was a swan? :)
But seriously, it seems that bird strikes are a hit-and-miss affair (if you'll excuse the pun), depending on where and with what they hit the screen.
I've whacked big pigeons, which just seem to bounce off, but have had a sparrow crack the glass.
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Blimey Ian, that's a spooky connection over the world at the same time.
David
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No Fowl play suspected, David!
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Almost as stupid as a Roo or Wallaby are the emu......long spindly legs which crumple leaving a larger than swan sized
body coming through the windscreen.
Other Oz road hazards....parrots and cockatoos feeding on grain spilt on the road at harvest time...take off straight into the car and even more scary....four wedge tailed eagles gorging on
roadkill attempting to fly away when approached but unable to gain height due to excess weight.
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Reminds me of when I was visiting a company that makes railway engines (on business OK? Not in my own time!)
In the testing bay they had a machine that fired (dead) chickens at the front of the train to test the strength of the glass. I wonder if windscreen manufacturers do the same?
Company lore had it that one day the factory cat got into the barrel of the chicken gun...not sure if that was true or if that's what they say to all the girls.
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R,
similar story. The Israeli air force have a "gun" which they use to check aircraft canopies. Birdstrikes are a big problem, as all migrating birds seem to overfly Israel.
There is an apocryphal story about another air force (always a different one!) borrowing the idea, and experienceing problems.
The israeli's were asked to comment, and replied "Defrost the chicken first".
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Ian, DW
That's a virtual yellow card to both of you!
Stu.
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Yes I wondered about the automatic reaction to duck bit, thanfully you did not pick me up on a National Express coach producing tyre smoke and feathers! But that's nothing to crow about.
Another bit, it was in the days before mobile phones, so when this bleeding (literally) individual knocked on someone's door to use the phone all they were concerned about was the flaming swan. Thanks bud.
Now we need to get a fishing thread going and we all really will be put in our plaice.
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> Now we need to get a fishing thread going and we all really
> will be put in our plaice.
You'd be the sole occupant.
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I'm not sure if it isn't a red herring...
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Depends what angle you look at it from.
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I don't think this is the right plaice for this
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OK, let's get back to motoring - maybe FIF wouldn't have hit the swan if he'd beeen driving a turbot!
Ronnie
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My old man put a pheasant (dead) through the windscreen of a mate of his Nissan Terrano (4x4) whilst out shooting a month ago!
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Shooting? what a horrible, bloody pastime!
(what was he shooting with, by the way? Mine's a Holland & Holland!) :)
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Holland and Holland number 2 of a pair of 1924 Royales! Snap?
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To be repeated as quickly as possible after a few jars:
I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son
I'm only plucking pheasants 'til the pheasant plucking's done
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The cost of repairs following my recent encounter - see "Running Pheasant - has just been estimated at nearly £1000 !
I've now had my 2 'freebies'(protected NCD), so must try to avoid bad parkers & running pheasants for a year or so!
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Roger,
Next time you see a couple of pheasants in an old banger, run like hell!
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Anyone remember that homicidal pheasant that charged a bicycle killing the rider (leaving a man with broken neck and a mess of feathers but no pheasant body...) think l saw it on 'Animals do the funniest things'...
Territorial creatures apparently and not too bright or sharp of eye, will charge things without stopping to look first.
dan
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Is Purdey out, then?
Not that I could afford one. Anyway I gather getting a permit now would involve crawling to and getting cheek from certain nice people, but probably no permit.
I went into Glasgow GPO in my teens for my ten bob licence and was told by the ancient clerk that he thought I was too young. Although usually a diffident youth in such circumstances I stood my ground and a senior ancient was summoned, who did the needful. The gun, a second-hand 28" local gunshop's brand - probably from Birmingham - was purchased by my mother who thought it would involve me in going outside and taking exercise, dragged out by an ex-gamekeeper character of her acquaintance with a hammer gun (but a good one) who had access to some rough shooting. The strategy was partially successful. I sold the gun some years later to the shop, where I was told the reason I had never hit much was, it was too short in the butt for me and the shot had been flying over everything!
Nowadays I don't know anybody with anything like a shoot - or anything like anything really - and anyway I'd need a 4X4 Toyota and one of these multi-wheeled contraptions too, I expect.
Speaking of exercise, it's time for some torrential rain to shift the countless tons of corrosive salt, required for the buses and mimsers, so Toad can go out for some.
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Roger, see if your protected NCB does the same to your renewal premium?
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Phil
I got my renewal quote BEFORE this incident, but as it was £210 more than last year, I had already agreed to renew with another company, & paid my 1st premium!
It's a bit complicated, 'cos I'd accepted the other company's quote before the incident. Now I'm wondering if THEIR quote will stand!
(At least they won't be footing the bill!)
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Ian
Just as well that you don't drop your "Haitches"
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